I'll start it with my own learned from experience tip.
Take your regular guitar to the shop and leave it there for some adjustments. (Normally it's easier to grab my guitar when I want to practice but now it's no there so I have to grab my bass... and figure out how to play the things I am practicing there and I can now play a pretty darn good bass line for Creep on my bass).
Anyone else have any less conventional things that lead to more/better bass practice, I know that a lot of times buying a bass directly improves guitar skills and I've definitely had a lot of that too, I'm gettin to where I almost feel competant these days.
My tip's pretty obvious, but it's stood me in good stead and applies equally to guitar and bass. Put a CD on and play along with it....it'll really improve your timing.
:D :D :D
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
Something else that improves timing is to put your own tracks down and play along wih them... it might be a little different than playing along to someone elses recording in that you have to do both tracks well, the first time I did that I'd say I improved my timing ridiculously (and at that point I don't think I even considered my timing an issue... one of those delusions I can easily get as I don't play with others much so far).
And here's something i ran across on youtube last night... Victor Wooten Bass technique, there was actually 7 different videos all about 9 minutes long, it's amazing to see him play, even when he plays scales it seems impressive to me. When he's actually playing it's pretty crazy, he covers a few techniques I wasn't even aware of.
The down side is my guitar is out of the shop now and when it comes to tinkering it's often easier on the guitar, I really like the bass and it's the role i'd most likely fill in a band, but it's not as noodle friendly as my guitar (and my gutiar has a stand within reach from my computer... the bass I have to get up and walk a few feet... sometimes that matters if I'm just relaxin, obviously when I'm out to practice the difference means nothing, but I probably spend 20-30 minutes a night and sometimes hours just playin around and that's time when being able to reach to my right a little makes a diff).
And here's something i ran across on youtube last night... Victor Wooten Bass technique, there was actually 7 different videos all about 9 minutes long, it's amazing to see him play, even when he plays scales it seems impressive to me. When he's actually playing it's pretty crazy, he covers a few techniques I wasn't even aware of.
They're great aren't they. :D I've been giving them repeat views for the past couple of weeks, hoping that some of his magic will rub off on me... However, there does seem to be the slight snag that he was given a bass to start on at the age of 3 (and played in his brothers' band at 5) whereas I bought my first bass at 60. If I stick with it I should be as good as him by about my 200th birthday... :wink:
My only tip so far would be to do plenty of work on hand stretching exercises, and to learn to relax when playing. The whole thing is so much heftier than a regular guitar and I found that I was getting a lot of hand tension, probably caused by trying to jump straight to doing what I could already do on the 6 string. So now I'm treating it as a completely new instrument with a different technique, and finding that it's better to play 3 simple notes accurately and relaxed that to get over-eager and play 12 notes all tensed up and impatient for results. :wink:
Cheers,
Chris
at the age of 3
Yeah, that's the one thing he said that I hated to hear, I can't even imagine learning anything at that age, I don't really have many concious memories until around 5 years old, so it's hard to imagine someone actually learning to play even just simple stuff (regardless of what parents might be doing to encourage that)... I imagine that his brain is just wired the right way for music, that said while I don't expect to ever reach his level of playing, I'm sure I can get reasonably close though.
